by Mary Nahorniak, USA TODAY

by Mary Nahorniak, USA TODAY

On Election Day and on Wednesday, users of USA TODAY's Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus pages were asked to give a single word that described how they were feeling about the election.

In the image below, the top half is a word cloud of their responses for Tuesday, compiled between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. Eastern, before polls closed. The lower half represents Wednesday's responses, after Obama's victory had been announced.

The word clouds were built using Wordle.net, which creates word clouds that illustrate the relative frequency each word appeared in our list of responses. The two days showcase a stark contrast in the national mood.